Speech Therapy CEU Roundup

  

Hi!

As this year comes to a close, it is time to make sure all of your continuing education units (CEUs) are in order! While state licenses for speech-language pathology vary from state to state for CEU requirements, ASHA requires 30 hours of qualifying professional development every 3 years. Not sure what counts as an continuing education for ASHA? There are a wide variety of activities that ASHA will accept. According to the ASHA website, the following are generally accepted as CEU activities:

• "Teacher-oriented content that is not related to the professions but enhances your ability to better serve your clients;
• Business and management content that will help you manage your private practice more effectively;
• Supervisory and leadership content for individuals employed in supervisory or management positions;
• Employer-sponsored in-service activities such as Grand Rounds, special education workshops (i.e., Americans with Disabilities Act requirements), formal training sessions sponsored by manufacturers on equipment used in the evaluation or treatment of your clients, and professional activities (i.e., professional ethics, diversity issues, reimbursement issues);
• Other continuing education activities such as state association workshops, and seminars offered through other professional associations like those offered for continuing medical education (CME) units, university scientific symposia, and formal online, non-credit courses offered through a university (i.e., autism, literacy, neurological disorders, genetics, and ethics);
• College or university course work at any level-undergraduate, graduate, or doctoral-offered by regionally accredited programs (can be via distance learning) in any area that meets the definition of professional development (i.e., foreign languages needed to communicate with the population you work with, early childhood development, autism, literacy, neurological disorders, genetics, ethics)."

ASHA allows SLPs to pick and choose the professional development activities that will be most beneficial to her and her particular population and setting. While looking for the ASHA approved CE provider logo is one way to know if a course may be beneficial to you, it is not required to take ASHA approved CEUs. You can also take university coursework, participate in employer provided professional development (if it is relevant to your position), or participate in other professional organizations' continuing education activities. This is something I have found to be confusing in the past! I always looked for that ASHA CE logo, but as long as the professional development is related to your work - document it! It counts! You do not need to have the ASHA CE logo stamped on it.

Is the end of your certification maintenance period looming? Check out these ways to get in some easy free CEUs!

1. Review your employer-sponsored activities you have participated in! If your employer provided relevant training or professional development, backtrack to how long you spent in the training and have some proof you attended. Many employers provide some way of tracking online what activities you have participated in for easy documentation.
2. Free ASHA provided CEUs! To celebrate 15 years of providing professional development, ASHA decided to giveaway 15 CEU courses for free! I'm still celebrating. 
3. Super Duper not only provides fun therapy materials, but they also have a few free CEUs.
4. SATPAC - this online program provides activities for remediating articulation disorders. They also provide a free course about using SATPAC for artic therapy for /r/ and /l/.
5. The AAC Institute provides a few courses online of varying difficulty. These are great refreshers for those who don't regularly work with AAC.
6. Passy-Muir, Inc.,  provides several webinars for continuing education on their website related to their speaking valves.
7. Lingraphica, a company that develops devices and apps for communication, has a few webinars about using their devices and products with patients and caregivers.
8. Mayer-Johnson, the creator of the beloved Boardmaker, has TONS of resources for professional development using their products!
9. Interactive Metronome provides free CEUs for their introductory courses.
10. Dynovox, a company that creates AAC devices, has several scheduled and recorded webinars for CEU related to their devices.
11. Keep an eye out for offers from sites like speechpathology.com, which occasionally offer promo codes for a free course!

Have you found any other free CEUs or have some CEU tips? Comment below to share!

~Erin


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10 Games for Middle School Speech Therapy

Hi!

So, if you have been following me, you know that I have stepped into the world of middle school this year. Two days a week I hang out with the "I'm too cool for school" crowd... just kidding... sort of. While my middle school students are mostly sweet and funny, sometimes I am just one more person trying to make them do work and speech is just one more thing taking away their study hall time. Some days, I can tell that speech is just NOT where they want to be. I get it. Many of them  have to have extra reading classes, constantly have working lunch instead of getting to just hang out with their friends like other students, their study halls are taken away to go receive extra help (or speech), and some even have after school resource time. On days where I can tell that my students have just had too much, I set my plans aside and pull out something a little less stressful: a board game. Now mind you, the games still allow the students to practice their language skills - it's just a little more low key and more fun. Here are some games that I have found to be a hit with my middle schoolers while still focusing on language and pragmatic skills. {Affiliate links provided for your convenience}

I play this game the traditional way, as well as backwards by having the students give adjectives to label the noun. It's a great game for working on descriptions as well as defending opinions. 

I love In a Pickle! It's a fun way to talk about word relationships as well as more defending opinions. 

Keep your eyes peeled fro Cranium's Whoonu at a thrift shop - it is a fun game for a social skills group. It helps students get to know each other and gets them talking about topics other than Minecraft and video games (which I now know far more about than I ever wanted to know).

Bubble Talk is a fantastic game for students working on understanding facial expression, perspective taking, and making inferences. Definitely an essential for your middle school supply arsenal.

You've Been Sentenced was another great thrift shop find. Students must use the words on the pentagon shaped cards to make a grammatically correct coherent sentence. The other players act as judges and must give a yay or nay to the sentence, which means everybody is actively involved.

I first played Man Bites Dog when another SLP brought it into the office at the rehab facility I work at part time. After playing it, I had to have it for my middle schoolers! Students work on creating headlines using the cards they are given. It is great for targeting word order and vocabulary. I also add a rule that the students must state 3 details that could be included to target main idea vs details.

I recently purchased Funglish and it has been a big hit with my competitive students. Students must use word tiles to describe a word while others attempt to guess the word. The only thing I don't like about this game is the timer can be a little short for some of my students who are low readers. I just used the timer on my cell phone to give them a little bit more time. 

I lucked out and found Moods already in my therapy room at school. It is great for my students working on understanding and expressing emotions. Students are given a sentence and must say it with a given emotion (which usually the sentence does not match the expected emotion). The other students try to guess the emotion based on the student's tone of voice and body language.




Another lucky find from the SLP who was at my middle school before me: Blurt. This game is great for word finding and vocabulary building. Students are given a definition and then must come up with a word to match the definition. I take away the racing component and have all students write down an answer they think works and then give points. Otherwise I find that some of my students just cannot keep up.

Say the Word is a different style game in that it is a cooperative game. The students must work together to win the game instead of playing against each other. I like this because it forces my students to communicate with each other and work together as a team. In this game, students must create a story using words on a cards that are drawn. Each person must start from the beginning of the story and then add on a part of the story when it gets to their turn. If they forget a part of the story, the other students can give clues (the directions say to act out the clues, but you know - its speech. I have the students give clues without saying the word). I also add a rule that the students must include story grammar elements to form a complete story instead of random events with no clear story line. This game is great for working as a team, auditory memory, and narrative language.

Do you work with older students? Comment and share what your favorite language games are!

~Erin

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Turkey Claus {+ Giveaway!}

Hi!

Happy Holidays! There are 7 work days left until winter break - woohoo! My speech room is in full holiday swing! We have decorated reindeer, read about some holiday traditions from around the world, and now we are reading Turkey Claus!

First of all, if you have not read this book - you need to. It has become a Christmas favorite in my speech room. I literally had a kindergarten student give me a fist-pump about this book choice after listening to it. I wish I could have had that moment captured on video - I died. It was too funny! Anyway... similar to the other Turkey books by Wendi Silvano, Turkey is in trouble because the farmer wants to eat him for dinner. Turkey decides to ask Santa for some help, but Santa is too busy! Turkey then tries on various disguises to try to sneak in to see Santa. His disguises are quite creative and always get my kids giggling. The book ends on a happy note. I like this book for therapy because it is great for predicting (Do you think this costume will work? Why or why not? What will Turkey dress like next?), sequencing, tier II vocabulary, and comprehension. I also have a record amount of students working on the /k/ sound this year, so they get several opportunities to practice while talking about turKey.

To go along with reading our book, we have been using my book companion that you can find in my TPT store. 

For my younger students working on sequencing, we have been using the story mats and mini-book to practice putting the story in order. Then the students use their ordered pictures to re-tell the story!

There are also two sets of comprehension questions - one set for basic WH questions/recall and one set for higher level reasoning questions, such as inferencing and feelings questions

Foy my older students, we have been using the vocabulary word-wall words and the definition cards. For homework, they did a sentence completion page with the vocabulary words we practiced in therapy (not shown).

         

We also will be following up with some extension activities, including identifying character traits, following directions, and prepositions! There are also activities for comparing and contrasting with venn diagrams, writing/drawing prompts, story grammar for older students, and some good old fashioned reinforcer activities.

  

You can check out more of my Turkey Claus companion here! Also, enter to win a copy below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway


I hope these ideas help you make it sanely to winter break! Happy holidays!

~Erin

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